Tauran said nothing. The ship hurtled on, crossing planetary diameters in every few heartbeats. In silence, all about them, inside the ship, inside the space between them.
“Tauran.”
“I hear you. This is all crazy.”
“Tauran’s a spacing clan. Three generations. You know what I’m talking about. That mess you got into at Meetpoint. Could you even explain to those old old women in the han why you couldn’t take out running? What chances you had getting up to V or what those distances are like? How many of ’em understand a stsho?”
“Who understands a stsho?”
“How do they formulate policy with them, make a treaty with them, tell us who live out here that we’re supposed to stand off the kif, do I guess-that they expect us to dispose of the kifish problem, because it’s going to take them ten, twenty years to change their concept of the way kif behave, or what the mahendo’sat are likely to do, and gods save us when they start dealing with the humans and their three governments, all fighting each other? What in a mahen hell are they going to do right now when Akkhtimakt comes into system? Order the Llun to bar them from station? Put hegemony sanctions on them? Study the problem?”
“It’s too much-”
“I’m asking another clan to damn itself. With me. I’m asking all the rest of you. I’m asking those who know what I’m talking about to do something about it. We’re not dealing with scattered pirates anymore. Hani out here’ll do the right thing. I’m betting all we’ve got on that. Traders’ll have stripped down, some go home, some scatter like seeds on a high wind. Everywhere. They’re warned. But it won’t save us from a rock. It won’t protect us if some kif decides to take our species out. I can’t get to the han to tell them what I’m telling you. I can’t explain what happened at Meetpoint- gods know what’s happened at Meetpoint. Or what’s going to follow us. Or when. If Sikkukkut sent a ship out we don’t know about, and some bastard’s tailing us, they might pick up our directional transmissions. We can’t do anything but what we’ve done.”
“I read your running orders. I got your message from Sif. And I’m not a fool.”
“I never took you for one. I got that impression early on. And I’ve got to go on walking the track I’ve been walking. Inside. Same as Jik’s done. Till we’ve got Akkhtimakt stopped. There aren’t enough hani ships in all space to do what we have to do, against hunter-ships and gods know what. We need the kif s firepower, even at the risk we’re running. That’s the game I’m playing, Tauran, and you know what I’ll hear from the han if I can even get to ’em. Illegal contacts. Violation of treaties. Illegal personnel for the eternal gods’ sake, on my ship. If somehow we live through this and the han’s still operating, they’ll probably hit us both with a charge of registry violations. That’s how much they understand. You know who we’re dealing with. Those old women are up with every twitch and power shift in the insystem markets, they know who’s leaning where in the vote, they know every move and current in Anuurn affairs, and every dustup in history between the River Hegemony and the Amphictiony of Pesh and every other gods-be particle of past history that isn’t going to matter a whole lot, Tauran, if one incoming rock kills every living thing on the planet back to the bugs and the worms, is it? A whole lot of expertise that’s by the gods useless in the only question that matters, which is what are we going to by the gods do, Tauran, with what we know and where we are, and what we got behind us and ahead of us that we know about and they don’t?”
“I’m hearing you,” Sirany said. There had been a quiet stir about. Chanur crew was up. Tauran crew was still in place. But it was very quiet now. “I’m hearing you. I’m agreeing with you. But I’ve still got to think about this, Chanur.”